Sight reading update

My son is 6 years old. As I've mentioned a long time ago, we have been teaching my son sight reading. It was a very long journey since we started 2 years ago, but my son is doing amazingly well. He is currently (sight) reading level B books. So, please, know it works. It takes time and for the first year we have been practicing every single evening. Usually for no more than 5 to 10 minutes. These days we are aiming for one or two books every day.

We recently had our 3 year evaluation (part of the IEP process) and my son scored in 90 percentile for word recognition. How cool is that? The IEP team was truly impressed - the 6 year IEP coming soon! This couldn't have come at a better time as we are transitioning to public school kindergarten.

Check out Natalie Hale's book: Down Syndrome Parenting 101: Must-have advice for making your life easier. She does a really good job explaining why sight reading is important for our children. Teaching my son to read at a very young age was probably the best thing we did for his education so far. 

Here is what worked for us:

• the Down syndrome learning program strategies - match, name, select. The materials are free and they work!
• the "Special Words" app, based on the same match, name, select strategy. Many of the same words from the DS learning program materials.
• practice, practice, practice! Every day for almost two years.
• we graduated from the learning program materials to Scholastic leveled books: First little readers level A, First little readers level B, soon to start First little readers level C. 

Down Syndrome - Reading (alphabet) and Math (number recognition)

My son is a strong visual learner, so colorful pictures and videos work well for him.

Reading: as mentioned in a previous post we are teaching my son whole words reading (sight words). However, at the same time we are working on letter recognition to get him ready for phonics and phonetic reading. We are focusing on letter sounds, rather than letter names, as the sounds will be way more useful for reading.

By far, for us, the best DVD for teaching letters was Leap Frog "Letter Factory" which we initially got from our local library, but worked so well that we decided to buy it. Another good one is Signing time "ABC" episode, especially if your kid already knows and loves Signing Time series. BTW, Leap Frog "Let's go to school" is a great video to get your kids ready of their first day of kindergarten.

Math: Teaching numbers from 1 to 20: Sesame Street "The great numbers game". Teaching numbers from 1 to 100: Scholastic Emily's first 100 days of school. We are now working on number recognition from 1 to 100, so we've posted on our fridge this numbers chart. Cheap and it does the job.

Sight reading

My son is 4 years old. There is plenty of evidence that teaching sight reading to children with DS is not only possible, but a really great idea. The Down Syndrome Ed website provides all the research on the subject (plus tutorials and materials for their See and Learn method). Bottom line, we really wanted to do this. We first tried using cards, but my son didn't have the patience and I wasn't determined enough (it was at least a year ago). We also tried "Your baby can read" videos. We used the videos for about a year on and off, and he started to recognize some words, but it wasn't clear how to move from words to sentences. We also bought the See and Learn app for iPad and, although I liked it, we only used it sporadically. Basically, we were interested, but couldn't apply ourselves.

Last month, I was reading Down Syndrome Parenting 101: Must-have advice for making your life easier, by Natalie Hale. I've been reading so many parenting and DS books during the last 3 years that they all kind of blend together in my head. But I'm still looking for the ultimate advice, so I keep on reading. I'm usually happy if, after I finish a book, I still remember one good idea.  What stuck with me from this book was the idea that children with DS entering kindergarten knowing to read are less likely to be underestimated by the school, more likely to receive an inclusive placement, and in general perceived as more capable learners. Obviously, this is incredible unfair, but I completely believe it to be true.

Well, now I have my deadline. I love deadlines!!! 

So, we got serious about sight reading. I mentioned before that both my son and I are addicted to the iPad, so using the See and Learn app seemed the most natural choice. We've been doing "homework" every day for the past two weeks. It is not the most exciting thing one can do with the iPad, and my son knows that very well. It is also kind of boring, looking at the same words over and over again. But it works!! My son now recognizes at least 8 words. I'm going to start putting together small books using these words to make it more interesting for him. We'll definitely continue with this!